Tax legislation

October 3, 2017

Readers may be forgiven for finding the recent rash of announcements by HMRC, regarding possible changes to tax legislation, rather confusing.

On 8th September, we were informed that the remaining sections of the March 2017 finance bill, that were deferred due to the May election, were back in circulation and being dealt with by the appropriate committees and debates. Eventually, they will find their way onto the statute books unless amended by the parliamentary processes.

Changes reintroduced include:

Ability to reimburse employers for certain benefits and avoid a tax charge.

A reduction in the money purchase pension allowance, once crystallised, from £10,000 to £4,000.

A reduction in the tax-free dividend allowance, from £5,000 to £2,000; effective from 6 April 2018.

In all there are seventy-two clauses and eighteen schedules.

It was then announced the government will publish its next Budget on Wednesday 22 November 2017. The November Budget will include further legislation to introduce digitisation of business tax.

It will be interesting to see how the political realities – a much slimmer majority in parliament – affect the progress of these changes in the coming weeks.

A bit of history this week but with a practical outcome for 2019.
Up to 1582, Europe used the Julian calendar introduced by the Romans in 45BC. Unfortunately, the Julian calendar differed from the solar calendar ...

HMRC normally send out a tax statement this time of the year to all self-assessment taxpayers that have submitted a tax return for 2017-18.
As we reported last week, this will list any balance of tax ...